


Love Unspoken, Faith Unbroken

by OnTheRoadSoFar



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Destiel - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 17:43:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12237624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnTheRoadSoFar/pseuds/OnTheRoadSoFar
Summary: Jody gives Dean some much-needed advice on how to move on from the fourth stage of the grieving process.





	Love Unspoken, Faith Unbroken

**Author's Note:**

> Here's to all of us wishing the SPN writers will do the right thing!

When Dean went to bed that night, at his usual time in the early hours of the morning, he couldn't sleep. The deep, otherworldly buzzing of the lights in the hallway seemed to penetrate his door and fill the dark bedroom with an electric energy that somehow made him restless, on edge. After a little while he gave up the idea of rest and pushed his pillow up against the headboard before turning on the bedside lamp, it's calm, orange light overpowering the darkness and killing the buzzing instantaneously. Dean knew it would. This wasn't his first sleepless night. 

Sitting back up, Dean grabbed his phone and flipped through the endless suggestions of familiar tv-shows on Netflix without really paying much attention. His mind was miles off, on the hood of the Impala outside a Get & Go somewhere on the outskirts of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Jody was next to him, and the first traces of fall filled the pale, gray air with a dreary freshness that Dean most of all just wanted to drift off to and get lost in. But he couldn't; he was held in place, chained to reality. Jody had just asked him how he was doing, and that tightness in his chest which he had gotten only too used to lately seemed to squeeze his lungs tighter than ever, making it almost hard to breathe. 

"I'm fine." The answer was a reflex, an instinct. He was pretty sure Jody didn't expect anything else. 

"I know you're not," she went on, however, in that funny way of hers that was both understandingly kind and mercilessly direct at the same time. "You don't always have to say you are, you know. Not to me."

Dean just kept staring into the distance, past the road, the trees, the horizon, everything. His forehead was beginning to throb. 

"I know you don't want to talk about it, but you do know you have to, right? It doesn't go away unless you do. Believe me."

"What doesn't?" Dean's voice was quiet, but clear. 

"The hurt." Dean turned his head then and met Jody's eyes briefly before looking down at the empty bear bottle in his hands. When did he even drink that? 

"Dean, I know what it's like not to get to say goodbye." 

Dean knew she'd been talking to Sam. He was probably the one who put her onto this. Dean knew Sam was tired of Dean locking himself up in his room, sometimes for days on end, tired of his drinking, his neglect to talk unless to bite at the people around him or to complain. But Dean just hadn't been able to find it in himself to give a fuck. He still couldn't. And beside, Jody didn't know what is was really like for him - after all, how could she? 

After a little while she went on: "What was the last thing you said to him?"

At the direct reference, Dean's breath caught in his throat. His eyes were beginning to burn, so he had to look up. The sky was white, but the clouds were not heavy enough to carry rain. 

"I don't even remember." It was true, too. And it was the worst part about this whole mess. "But I know it wasn't nice. Or important." A short, mirthless laugh of which he had no control escaped his otherwise tightly shut lips, before the same uncomfortable silence returned. 

Jody looked towards the gas station next, because Sam was - finally - coming, a bag of chips in one hand and what very much looked like a pie in the other. Dean hated himself for being angry with Sam for trying to be nice to him. But he just wanted to be left alone. He didn't want to talk. Didn't need to. Whatever Jody was doing, it wasn't helping. It just made him feel like hell. Everything made him feel like he'll these days, because every moment was taking him further and further away from a time when Cas was still here, alive, with him, and Dean had all the chances in the world to tell him that one thing he more than anyone deserved to know. Time, the changing of the seasons, was slowly, day by day, wiping away all traces of Cas' brief time on Earth. Why couldn't someone wipe the pain away, too? Why did Cas have to, somehow, live on inside of Dean, in his mind, in his heart, in every word and every sensation - every unfinished cup of coffee, every unopened book on he shelf? How is one supposed to live like that? Haunted? Alone? 

Jody turned back to Dean and put a soft, gentle hand on his forearm. 

"Whatever it is you never told him, don't hesitate to say it now." 

Dean frowned, and she continued. 

"I'm serious. Say the words. Out loud. The sooner, the better. Trust me, it helps."

She removed her hand quickly, as Sam approached the car. Him and Jody kept up a simple conversation on hunting and Jody's girls on the way back. 

Dean's phone lay dark and quit on his chest in the orange light of his bedroom. His eyes returned to the moment, the events of the day becoming more distant with each passing second until only Jody's words on the good of the car lingered in the stale air of Dean's private little corner of the bunker. 

"Cas?" It was the first time he had spoken his name in weeks. It was strange, talking to him from the quiet of his bed as he had done so many times before when praying - only this time, no one was listening. No one would answer. Dean had never really believed in the whole better-late-than-never philosophy, but he didn't know what else to do. He had been to late. And if he could never admit it Cas, the least he could do was to admit it to himself. For Cas. For the both of them, and for what they'd shared and could have shared. The words lingered a little while behind his sealed lips. He wanted so badly to know what they really meant before he said them out loud, but there seemed no way of finding out. He was beginning to doubt he ever would. 

"Cas, I won't say I'm sorry. That's not- I've said that, a million times, and look where it's gotten us."

"Damn it, Cas, I miss you so much. I'm glad you don't know how much, because you would blame yourself to no ends if you know how I was hurting because of you."

"Because... Because, Cas, I- I never did tell you... You told us, me, Sam and mom - you looked at me, Cas, when you told us - how much we meant to you. That you- that you loved us."

"And of course I love you, too, Cas. I love you, I'll go on loving you. You were the one who changed me, and now you're gone, and I don't know what I am or what I'm supposed to do now. I don't even have a picture of you. You had such blue eyes, Cas." 

It rained all through the night and most of the morning. Sam didn't notice until he went for a run about noon, when the ground was covered in large puddles, and the trees were heavy and dark. Dean helped set the table the next evening.


End file.
